


Blood & Ash

by TheWitchInTheWardrobe



Category: Thomas Hawkins Series - Antonia Hodgson
Genre: F/M, Kidnapping, Multi, Revenge, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:54:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26140699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWitchInTheWardrobe/pseuds/TheWitchInTheWardrobe
Summary: In a twisted game of revenge, an old enemy will emerge from Thomas Hawkin's past determined to strike when his back is turned. In a time that should have been filled with happiness, Thomas Hawkins finds himself stripped of every resource as the City of London itself turns against him.Tom, Kitty and Jeremiah must work alone against a man who is just mad enough not to fear the name Fleet.
Relationships: Charles Buckley/Mary Meadows, Thomas Hawkins & Sam Fleet, Thomas Hawkins and Charles Buckley, Thomas Hawkins/Kitty Sparks
Kudos: 1





	Blood & Ash

The aftertaste of blood and ash was still potent on his tongue. He was more familiar with one taste than the other. The taste of blood was one he knew well. Every punch, every hit left the same aftertaste. This was not the one that concerned him. It was the ash; it was almost as if he had licked a bonfire. He licked his lips and found that they were as dry as his mouth was, so dry in fact that they were cracking. He tried to move his lips and put more moisture into his mouth but the cracking made this painful.

He had not yet opened his eyes. He was not sure he wanted to. His head was so heavy that the idea of sitting up seemed impossible, and his eyes were so heavy with lack of sleep he was sure that if he were to open them they would only close again.

He was in bed. This much he was sure of. He slowly moved his leg across the soft sheets and found that it took a while for his foot to meet the end of the bed. He tried to move his other food but this heavy limb would not move. This was a big bed. Bigger than his bed at home, which meant he wasn’t at home. He wasn’t at the Pistol. And he defiantly wasn’t in St. Giles.

_St. Giles._

_Fire._

Sam sat up in bed faster than his head could keep up. Through eyes that were burning for the need of sleep, he looked around at a bedroom that defiantly wasn’t his own. He had sat up so suddenly that the room span before his eyes.

Sam was laid in the centre of a large white bed that sat in the centre of the room. His head rested on a mountain of cushions and he was buried under so many quilts and blankets that he might as well have been a pea.

The rest of the room was just as richly furnished as the bed. The wallpaper looked new. So many mirrors and paintings adorned the walls that even Queen Caroline would have blushed. The furniture was tinted with gold. Two gold and purple chairs faced the ornate fireplace, on which Sam’s shoes were drying. A large window dominated one wall of the bedroom, so large it was letting in a dazzling around of light. The curtains had not been drawn last night, those too were being held back by gold curtain tithes.

From where he was on the bed Sam could only see so much out of the window, and what he saw, he didn’t like. The view was nothing more than an unbroken sky. A perfect blue. No smoke rising into the sky to indicate buildings, no other buildings within view, just sky. It was so quiet also, so quiet that Sam knew not only was he not in London, but he wasn’t even close by.

He was in a country house. That much was easy to deduce. And a bloody large one that that. Were Tom and Kitty here too? He couldn’t remember.

_Fire._

The heaviness of his body began to fade and that was when he felt it. The cold metal against his foot. He didn’t even need to pull up the covers to see, he knew what it was. He was chained by one foot to the bed. The foot he could not move. He was a prisoner in the world’s most luxurious cell. Well, some prisoners might appreciate that, but not Sam Fleet.

A key turning a lock was what distracted him. Sam quickly pulled up the covers and sat back into the pillows. So many pillows! Sam’s head left like it was half a mile away from the headboard.

The door opened and rather meek-looking gentlemen walked in. The man, who wore so much powder on his face that it matched his white wig shuffled into the room, behind him trailed an older woman holding a silver tray. Both were short and petite. In fact, from behind the man looked to have the same size and figure as Sam, only the wrinkles on his face set out the years between them.

‘You are awake’ the man had no accent and his voice held no authority despite his dress and way of standing.

 _Well, I am awake._ Sam replied not through his words, but through his stare.

‘Are you hungry?’

When had Sam last eaten? It was at Molls with Tom. He had eaten a meat pie, they had just been out solving the mystery of Mrs. Yates. Her husband suspected her of having a lover as she was often out of the house and was spending more of her allowance that usual. In what had been a happy marriage Mr. Yates now found his wife to be secretive, and for a woman who could not lie, she was doing it a lot. It turned out Mrs. Yates had taken to caring for a stray dog that was often seen outside of their yard, but knowing that her husband was not keen on dogs she had secretly been feeding and caring for the animal. That was when Sam had last eaten and that was before the _fire._

‘Are you hungry? Can you understand me?’

‘I understand you’ Sam’s throat was still impossibly dry. He could see and smell the hot coffee resting on the silver try and his dry throat begged for it, but his sense of unease was stronger.

‘Would you like breakfast or shall I fetch the doctor?’

_That felt like a threat. It was a threat._

‘What’s for breakfast?’ Sam asked

The small woman walked over and placed the tray over him whilst being careful not to get to close. What was he going to do to her? He had no escape plan, at least not yet.

The small woman took a serviette and placed it over Sam’s lap. It was gesture done with one aim, and that was to get close enough but yet not too close so that she could mutter in his ear ‘It’s not poisoned. Not this time’

_Not this time._

Sam gave a small nod of thanks for the warning subtle enough as not to draw the attention of the powdered man who still lingered by the door. The small woman then walked from the room without looking back. She left the room without acknowledging the man, her superior.

‘My name is Barnaby if you need anything you may ask for me’

Sam took a forkful of eggs and stuffed them into his mouth. Eating was hard with his cracked lips but his rumbling stomach outweighed the pain.

‘You’re Barnaby and this is?’ 

‘Purcell House’

Sam nodded and took a large gulp of his coffee ‘and who lives here?’

Barnaby looked surprised by this question ‘why you do’

_I doubt that._

‘Who is your master?’

Barnaby scoffed ‘you really must be unwell. Maybe I should call for the doctor? Do you not know? Your father of course’

Now it was Sam’s turn to look surprised. Later he was ashamed that the thought did cross his mind, _is he? When did this happen?_ Sam didn’t know an awful lot about what his father did. Sam just did was he was told.

‘Your new father’ Barnaby reiterated.

_New father? NEW FATHER?_

‘You are very lucky Samuel’ Barnaby went on to say ‘most orphans are not so lucky’

_Orphan?_

_Fire._

* * *

_It all happened so quickly that not even a Fleet saw it coming, and the worst part was that Sam wasn’t even there. He was late going back to St. Giles that night because he had been with Tom at Molls._

_The night was clear and the sky was full of stars. One did not often see stars in London. The stars did not shine on London. It was the black heart of England._

_Sam wondered aimlessly through the streets, nodding to the street boys and harlots he knew. London by night was the real London. Tom and Kitty didn’t understand how Sam could sleep throughout the day, especially with Evelyn’s cries, but Sam had five other sisters. He could sleep through anything, especially the wailing of little girls._

_There was nothing strange about that night, nothing that Sam picked up upon anyway. Not until the snowing started._

_The street boys held up their hands in wonder and stuck out their tongues to catch the falling snow. It was only when they did this at they realised it was not snowing. It was ash. It was foolish of them to have thought it was snow anyway. It did not snow in July._

_Ash meant fire. Fire was bad. Very bad in London._

_Sam was only coming off Russell Street was then the noise started. An explosion of sound that set dogs barking and curtains twitching. It was the sound of marching, of screaming and fire._

_A soft orange glow appeared in the distance directly over St. Giles._

_Sam broke into a run._

_The ash was falling thick and fast making it hard to see but one thing was for certain the rookery’s of St. Giles was ablaze. A circle of soldiers hemmed in the people trying to escape and kept out those trying to help. A priest stood behind the line of soldiers calling out a sermon about purification and starting anew._

_It was so hot. The heat was immobilising in its self. St. Giles was now a furnace, his home was a furnace. Where was his mother? His father? His sisters? He couldn’t see them in the crowds._

_Sam ducked under the arm of a soldier and started running towards the flames. His heart was beating so loud he could hear it in his ears. His heartbeat wasn’t just something in his chest but was beating all around him._

_‘There you are’_

_Everything went black._


End file.
